Donchian Channel With ATR Trailing Stop
- Indicators
-
Kenichiro Sakamoto
I'm Kenichiro Sakamoto, the developer behind FXEA365 — a studio building transparent, rule-based Expert Advisors for MetaTrader 5. - Version: 1.10
- Updated: 16 July 2026
FREE — the Donchian breakout channel and the ATR trailing stop that manages the trade after the break, drawn on one chart.
Most breakout indicators show you the entry and stop there. The hard part of trend following is what happens next: where the stop goes, when it ratchets, and when the move is over. This one draws both halves of the system.
=== WHAT IT DRAWS ===
- Donchian channel (upper and lower) over the last N closed bars.
- Gold arrows where a bar CLOSED beyond the channel — the moment a breakout system would actually enter.
- The ATR trailing stop that would then carry the position: green while long, red while short, dotted. It only ever moves toward price (it never loosens), and it disappears when price closes through it — that is where the trade would end.
=== NO REPAINTING ===
The channel is built from bars that are already closed, and the breakout is judged on the previous bar's close. Nothing is drawn from the forming bar, so an arrow that appears never disappears later. You can scroll back and trust what you see.
=== SETTINGS ===
- N_Channel (default 40): channel length in bars.
- Trail_ATR (default 8.0): trailing distance as a multiple of ATR.
- ATR_Period (default 14).
- ShowArrows: turn the breakout markers on or off.
Defaults are a USDJPY H1 configuration. A breakout length that suits one market rarely transfers to another — re-fit N_Channel and Trail_ATR on the instrument you trade.
=== HONEST NOTE ===
This is a visualisation tool, not a signal service. Breakout trend following has a win rate well below 50%: many small losses, a few large winners. It works in trending markets and bleeds in ranges. Watch how the arrows and the trailing stop behave on your instrument before you trade the idea.
=== THE SAME LOGIC AS AN EA (also free) ===
Donchian Trend Engine — the Expert Advisor that trades exactly this: closed-bar breakout, hard stop-loss on every trade, ATR trailing stop, one position, no martingale and no grid.
=== THE EXPERT ADVISORS THAT TRADE THIS LOGIC ===
This indicator draws the entry and the trailing stop. These are the Expert Advisors that execute them, with the real-tick numbers we measured. All of them use a hard stop-loss on every trade, one position at a time, no martingale and no grid.
- Megamax Donchian Trend (USDJPY H1) — profit factor 1.50, maximum equity drawdown 7.3%, 631 trades over 9.4 years of real ticks.
- Megamax Donchian Pound Yen (GBPJPY H1) — profit factor 1.41, maximum equity drawdown 18.5%, 173 trades over 9.4 years.
- Atlas Diversified Trend Portfolio — the same breakout discipline across 5 markets in one EA. Profit factor 1.48, maximum equity drawdown 19.7%, 1,193 trades over 7.5 years.
Every number above is from an every-tick backtest on real ticks, and every one of those EAs loses money in ranging markets. That is what breakout trading is.
More free tools from us:
- Donchian Trend Engine (EA): https://www.mql5.com/en/market/product/185534
- Crypto Trend Channel (indicator): https://www.mql5.com/en/market/product/185642
- Pivot Trend (indicator): https://www.mql5.com/en/market/product/185643
- Dip Buyer Zones (indicator): https://www.mql5.com/en/market/product/185644
Our other free tools: https://www.mql5.com/en/users/app.develop.sk/seller
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